NYC puzzle enthusiasts gather for jigsaws and a new way to socialize

NEW YORK CITY - Think about how you feel putting the very last piece into a puzzle.

"It's satisfying that's not able to be described easily," says Courtney Kupferschmidt.

"You know how in German,"--says Emma Dietrich-- "you have very hyper-specific words. And I wish there was one in English, but it's just it's a very satisfying feeling."

Kupferschmidt and Dietrich didn’t know each other before they discovered the group "Puzzle People of NYC." 

It’s a social meetup group dedicated exactly to what the name implies—puzzles.

"I survived on puzzles through the pandemic," says the group’s founder, who goes simply by Sasha. 

She has traditionally done puzzles alone. But one day she had an idea. She posted to her social media, and asked if anyone in New York wanted to come to a meetup to puzzle.

Two people showed up—and Sasha says it was "the best feeling of all." It told her there are other people out there who are really interested in puzzles.

"And I find it's one of the few things I can do that I don't need to be doing something else while doing it. I don't listen to music or watch TV. I can really just focus on doing the puzzle," Kupferschmidt said, who first heard about the group through Reddit.

Kupferschmidt posts puzzle videos on her TikTok.

 And that’s how Leigh Goulbourne found out about it.

"And I was like, I love puzzling," Goulbourne said. "I saw her TikTok, and I started coming to these meetups."

Sasha now gets so many requests to join her bi-monthly meetups at various locations — she has to turn people away. Her largest gathering was 70 people, working multiple puzzles at a time.

Sasha says too many people working on a single puzzle at a given time is a bit messy. (Five, she says, is usually the max per puzzle.)

Community is a good word for it.

"A big part of this is social for me because I can always have a puzzle and do it on my own time at home to decompress after work," said Emma Dietrich. "But actually coming out and meeting new people that otherwise I may have never had the chance to meet normally has been really nice and refreshing."

Dietrich says even in a city as big as New York, it is still hard to make new friends.

"So going out and having the chance to put yourself out there is it's rewarding," Dietrich said. 

Goulbourne agrees.

"I feel like most of the people in my social circle I've met thru school or my job," Goulbourne said. "It's been really special to be able to tap into a community outside of those two spaces."

"I didn't have that many friends," Sasha said. "Now I do."

For Sasha, creating that community-- for others and herself—was like finding an elusive missing piece.

"Just growing up, it was always difficult to find a place or a community where I feel myself," Sasha said. 

So for me to create something where I can say everybody's welcome and it's a good feel and we're here to support each other, just yea," she said with a smile.